


standing with an army (I'll be yours)

by inordineight



Category: Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Billy Kaplan is a good bro, Kate Bishop Is a Good Bro, M/M, Possibly Unrequited Love, kate bishop is the best drinking buddy, tommy and billy might not be brothers but they're soulmates y'all
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-02-23 01:40:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13179654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inordineight/pseuds/inordineight
Summary: Tommy feels for Kate’s hand in the dark and covers his face with it.“I just want him to like me when I’m not dying or crying. That’s all I want. I would also want to make out with his face but the first thing’s more important, overall.“in which tommy deals with having feelings for and about one billy kaplan, and kate drinks her way through having to deal with him





	1. i think i'll let fate just take me home

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [i've always had a thing for silence (but lately I just need a voice I recognize)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12453441) by [inordineight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inordineight/pseuds/inordineight). 



He doesn’t know why he doesn’t run. Half the time he’s not sure if he's staying for the right reasons, either.

They break him out and the first person he sees is Kate. Beautiful Kate, fire and fight molded into one girl in purple armor.

He sees Eli and he's familiar in the way that his fellow test subjects inside the center are familiar, all that rage held tightly inside, waiting for the chance to break free. 

But then he sees him, ridiculous red cape and silver headpiece and all, and the world stands still in a way it only ever did before his powers manifested. 

The world slows down and he wonders if this boy is doing something, placing some sort of restraint on his powers maybe, but then he realizes he's not scared, not panicked, not even a little. And it terrifies him. The light in Billy's eyes is so similar to his own, not just physically but in that angry, desperate determination sparking through it that it almost feels like it's burning him, burning through him until all that’s left is calm. 

Billy’s here. Everything is as it should be. 

He's going to regret this, he just knows he will. He knows that if he goes with them, he'll never be able to say no to anything that Billy asks of him. It takes him a quarter of a second to make it but the choice stays with him for the rest of his life. 

He doesn't run. 

He listens to Hawkeye's instructions and he fights alongside Patriot and he convinces himself he's doing it because he believes in what they're fighting for. There's still some good left in him, dammit. If there's a chance that he can help rescue whoever the fuck Teddy is the way they rescued him, then he's going to take it. 

It doesn't matter that they think he's some sort of teenage sociopath, he's got enough practice ignoring the whispers and the rumors about him at his old home and his old school and his old forsaken life. He's got this. 

He doesn't get to take a good look at his supposed twin until they're in the Skrull ship, where Billy takes this grimy blond kid into his arms and holds him so tight as if he'd never want to let go. The bitter pang of disappointment sits heavy in his chest. That's it? That's what his first grand mission was all about? Saving some kid in a tattered brown hoodie who was kidnapped by his own uncle? species? mother's spurned lover? What a joke. 

“Hey jackass, you ruined my hoodie,” Billy says through his tears - because of course he's crying, the sap- and Teddy just holds him tighter, hands running tenderly, absentmindedly down Billy's back. “I'll get you a new one, I promise, I'm sorry, I love you” - so Tommy turns away and wonders if he still has time to leave. 

He's done his part. He's repaid this favor he's never asked for. Can't he run away now, pick up whatever pieces of his life is left on his own terms, in his own time? 

Cassie lays a hand on his arm and says a quiet thank you, her eyes on the reunited couple and Tommy knows, deep in his sorry version of a heart, that the answer is no. 

Of course, that’s when the Kree arrive.

*

He doesn't want to get to know Teddy, because Teddy gets Billy in a way that Tommy never would, in a way that Tommy would never admit he wants to. It's after a training session and he’s staring Teddy's invitation to go to Forbidden Planet with him and Billy in the face, searching for reasons that being with these two in their natural habitat would benefit him in any way whatsoever.

Teddy seems to be the kind of guy with a pathological need for everyone to like him, and Billy's... Billy. There are times when he just stares at him and is overcome with longing, with a nostalgia that has no right to exist. 

"Yeah sure, whatever. Let me just get out of this spandex." 

Teddy's stupid perfect face lights up like the stupid fucking sun. 

"Cool, B's waiting out-" 

Tommy blurs out and is back in civilian clothing before Teddy can even finish his sentence. 

"Let's go." 

Billy is waiting outside Bishop Publishing, waving a goodbye at Kate, Eli and Cassie while holding three corn dogs in one hand and three milkshakes in the other. 

"Hey guys, I thought we'd take the scenic route and walk. You up for that?" 

Teddy takes the food out of his boyfriend's hands before they spill into the pavement, pressing a kiss to Billy's cheek as he does. Billy's face goes soft and adoring for a second that feels like a lifetime to Tommy, before he turns his attention to him and starts talking his ear off. 

"It's so cool that you're coming with us. I don't know if they allow you guys to read comics in juvie but a bunch of incredible series came out just last year, you won't believe..." 

Teddy sticks a milkshake straw in his mouth and turns him so they can start walking, shooting an apologetic look to Tommy over Billy's shoulder. Tommy chooses to ignore it, his attention captured by the fact that him and Billy are the exact same height. 

"Babe, he already said yes, you don't have to keep selling it." 

Billy keeps gesturing wildly, his words muffled as pink lips suck loudly at the straw. He watches with rapt fascination, hating himself the whole time. On Billy's other side, he's aware of Teddy's eyes focusing on the same thing and feels sick to his stomach. Him and Altman may have more in common than he thought. 

*

The problem is, he doesn’t know how to be Billy's friend. 

He watches the way him and Eli trash talk each other while playing video games, their knees and shoulders brushing occasionally, often violently. They always try to invite him to play along, but he knows from past experience (read: lab tests) that his hands move too fast for the controller to recognize. He tries to imagine himself in Eli's position, receiving all those casual touches and unthinking affection, but he can't. He thinks he'd sooner spontaneously combust. 

He imagines Billy's fingers combing through his hair the way he once saw him do to Cassie as he prepared to braid her hair. The girl had leaned her head on his thigh, playing with the cuff of his jeans as she chattered about her day at school. They looked so warm and comfortable and Tommy- well, Tommy wanted to sink into the ground a la Jonas until he couldn’t see them anymore. 

He doesn’t know what they would talk about. The trip to the comic store was a complete disaster. He’s never had a long attention span, not even before. Anyway, unless it’s completely necessary, reading is not his strong suit. Come to think of it, neither is making friends. There were probably records of that in fake juvie. 

The second problem, of course, wasn’t that he didn't want Billy to touch him. It was that he wanted it too much. 

And it wasn’t as if Billy was particularly tactile or anything, that was more up Teddy’s alley. But sometimes, like when they’re training, he sees Billy bump knuckles with Kate after she downs Eli, or wrap his arm around Cassie’s neck and ruffle her hair when she sneaks around Teddy enough to incapacitate him, and he wishes they shared that kind of camaraderie too. 

There are nights when Billy and Teddy stay up all night together, not even making out but just talking in hushed voices until three in the morning about who knows what. Tommy knows this because the wall his and Teddy’s room share with Billy’s is super thin. Shut up, he’s not spying on them, okay? Tommy’s never had that. Tommy rarely meets people who don’t want to leave after five minutes of being around him. 

But Billy’s different, and it frustrates him that he can’t figure out how or why. He feels like he’s known Billy his whole life except his memory of it had been locked away. It feels like he’s been waiting since forever for Billy to come back to him, but neither of them can figure out how he fits into his life now that he’s here. 

There’s just a steady chorus of _familiarimportantyours_ at the back of his head every time their eyes meet, an imperative _protectprotectprotect_ whenever they’re out in the battlefield. It’s scary, because there are times when he swears he can feel where Billy is and how much pain he’s in. It’s usually when they’re out fighting that it’s strongest. 

It’s strange, because he’s never really imagined that this was the way his life would turn out. His fourteen year old self would have never believed that being tortured and experimented on in what was supposed to be a government facility for the next two years would lead to him being ...well, Speed.

Tommy hasn’t had a home for a long time, not really. But Speed fights alongside this ragtag group of teens misguided enough to accept him. Speed, despite his bluster, is a defensive player. He runs around disabling the enemy and bringing civilians to safety. And he always, always has one eye on Wiccan, the abnormal vibrations of his spells a flashing beacon for him to trace and follow.

Tommy Shepherd is just another reject thrown away by the system, weighed down by his anger issues and lack of direction and conflicting feelings for a boy who shares his face.

But Speed is a superhero. Speed is a Young Avenger. 

He figures there are worse things to be.


	2. i just move as my heart commands

Billy somehow gets it into his thick head that they're reincarnated from the souls of the Scarlet Witch and the Vision's twin sons. So the punk starts calling him brother and insisting they hang out and convinces his parents to let him live with them along with stupid perfect Altman, of all people.     
   
Tommy thinks,  _this is bad_ , as he packs up what little possessions he owned. He thinks, _I can't be Billy's brother_ , as Drs. Kaplan embrace him and welcome him to their home. Thinks _Brothers don't think this way about each other_ , as Billy enthusiastically shows them around the house.  Thinks _I can't be here_ , as he assembles his bedding (a bunk on top of Altman's because "I'm too heavy to sleep on top, sorry Tommy"). _Yeah, bet you're not used to being a top_ , Tommy thinks again, and immediately feels bad about it.

Maybe he should just stop thinking altogether.     
   
Which isn't much of a problem, since living with Billy also means having to see him get out of the shower every. single. morning. Means having to see him as he wakes up every day, his hair soft and sleep-rumpled, night shirt falling off thin shoulders as he sleepily presses a good morning kiss to Teddy's lips before nodding off into his cereal.

Tommy doesn't think _I'd kiss you even with morning breath_ , doesn't think _I'd like to lick your collarbones_ , doesn't think _I'd wake you up by sucking you off_ , because he can't fucking think with Billy walking around half naked and adorable 24/7.     
   
Weeks into their move, the Drs. Kaplan sit him down and he's half-afraid and half-relieved because he thinks they're finally kicking him out, that he'd finally be free of this Billy-induced purgatory.

Except they don't.

They ask how he's settling in, about how the team found him, and if he's happy. He sits there dumb and awe-struck because no adult has ever asked him that question without some sort of malevolent intention behind it. They tell him that he doesn't have to feel guilty about anything and _no Tommy we can see it in your eyes_ and _you don’t have to hold back when eating_ and _there’s no need to keep on doing all the chores beyond the ones assigned to you_ and _yes we know it was you who organized the linen closet_.

Tommy thinks that if he wasn’t so emotionally stunted as a person, this is the part where he cries. Because in this life, his parents were never this kind, never this considerate. He thinks his own parents won't even notice if he didn’t eat for a week or if he re-wallpapered the entire house.

So he sits there with his eyes dry and his fists clenched under the table and nods his head politely before speeding off to the safety of his and Altman's room where he doesn't have to deal with inconveniences like fucking feelings.    
   
And of course Billy's there when Tommy gets in. He kind of wants to tear his hair out.

"Are you crying?" Billy asks incredulously, the basket of laundry in his arms tumbling to the floor.    
   
"No," Tommy replies roughly, definitely not crying.    
   
"Yes you are, Teddy says that's what my face looks like when I'm trying not to cry," Billy retorts, climbing into his bed and placing a hand on his knee.    
   
Tommy explodes at the touch.     
   
"I said I'm not crying, Kaplan. Leave it alone."    
   
"Was it my parents? I saw you talking on my way here. I swear if they made you cry, I'll- "    
   
"You'll what?" he asks angrily, "What would you do to your perfect, caring, loving parents? Fuck, you guys deserve each other. What a perfect fucking family."    
   
Billy's hand travels from his knee and is joined by the other to rest on both his shoulders, bringing his face closer to Tommy's. Deep brown eyes, so similar yet so different from his own, train their earnest gaze on him.

Tommy explodes a little bit more.     
   
"You're part of this family. You know that, right? You and Teddy.”  
   
A sardonic part of Tommy wants to point out that Billy would never call Teddy brother. But he doesn't, because what would be the point? It won't change anything. Billy would still be with Teddy and Tommy will still be stuck loving him from afar, memories he can't even remember convincing him that the two of them belong together.     
   
"Tommy? I need you to realize that. I know I haven’t been the best brother but I want you to know that you don't have to other yourself from us. I'm here for you. "  

And Tommy wants to show him, but he knows that he can’t. Sometimes he just wants to shake Billy and make him understand that he can't be a part of this family, that they’re showing him more kindness than he knows how to deal with. He wants Billy to stop calling him brother because it hurts more than he can explain. Billy's not his brother because he doesn't know him. Brothers don't make each other feel whole and complete the way Billy does him. Brothers don't jerk off to the thought of the other late at night, when they're sure that everyone else is asleep. Brothers don't feel like there's a hole in their soul that only the other's proximity can fill. Brothers don't think of kissing the other every time they're near.     
   
These are the things Tommy would never tell him, secrets he'd keep close to his heart and take with him to the grave. It doesn't stop him from mirroring Billy and pressing their foreheads together, breathing in deeply.

“Wow, that was almost verbatim from one of your Mom’s psych books.”

Billy lets out a watery laugh, the breath of it fanning across his face, warm and too close. Tommy lets his eyelids fall.

“How do you know what my Mom’s books say?”

“Speed-read all of it when I first got here. I wanted to know what I’m up against,” he mumbles, lost in the haze of calm Billy’s presence always seems to inspire.

One of Billy’s hands leave his shoulder, fingertips grazing over his eyelids, the bridge of his nose, his closed lips that part at the other’s touch.

“No one here is planning to get rid of you. We all want you to stay. I’ll make sure you’ll never have to be alone again, if you let me.”

Tommy nods and Billy’s hand moves to cradle his cheek. Something deep in his chest purrs in contentment, some ancient, primordial need satisfied by the heat of Billy’s palm against his skin. He feels the lightning in his veins, his eyes, flicker with something akin to triumph.

Billy closes his eyes and sighs gratefully on an exhale, so sweet and so soft that Tommy feels his heart break. Of course Billy would understand, would be able to put into words the unnamed fears he’d pushed into the back of his mind in a futile effort to forget them.

How could he not? Billy's the other half of his soul, the one who’s been with him since before the beginning. Billy, whose mere presence is both the source and relief of the loneliness he thought he’d trained out of himself a long time ago. Billy, whom he'd search for over and over, in every universe, in every version of reality. Billy, whom he'd give his life up for with no hesitation, no questions asked not only because he knows the boy would do the same for him, but because what would be the point of living a half-life without him now that he knows he’s here?     
   
"I'm so sorry," Billy murmurs. Even through closed lids Tommy feels the world go blue, feels his feet lift off the bed and into the air, the comforting glow of Billy's magic surrounding them until they're both floating, connected to nothing but each other. Every part of him that's touching Billy is a point of _warmsaferighthome_. Tommy almost chokes on the exhilaration of it.  

"I'm sorry it took me so long to get to you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there and you were alone."    
   
Tommy's hands shake from where they're resting on Billy's shoulders. He'd never dreamt that he’ll get so close. He wants to drown in him, wants to feel every part of skin that he can reach. He wants to stay here forever until they fuse back into one being he's slowly starting to believe they once were.     
   
Billy’s other hand slides up to his neck, the magic around them pulsing slightly with the movement, making the air around them grow infinitesimally warmer. Tommy takes a shuddering breath, opening his eyes a fraction. Billy's own are glowing that familiar, beloved blue, a small stream of tears flowing from each. He reaches out to brush them away, his breath catching in his throat as he spies the small, peaceful life on his lips.     
   
"I am so glad you found me,” he croaks out. They're suspended in midair at the center of his bedroom, and Tommy can feel time and space within their bubble stand still, similar in every way to the pause the whole world makes every time he runs. Billy's clothes are fluttering against the invisible wind that always came with his displays of power.

“I’ll always find you,” Billy whispers fiercely, thumbs moving tenderly over his nape and the small silver hairs there. Tommy holds back a moan and tightens his grip on the other boy’s shoulders.

I’ll give you the world, he thinks, as Billy slowly powers down. I’ll give you the sun and moon and stars, as they sink gently back into the bed. Billy’s exhaustion is evident in the way he clutches him weakly, and Tommy guides them both gently onto the bed. Billy clings to him and buries his face in his neck. He waves a hand and the blankets hovers over them before falling. They’re both asleep the moment it settles over their entwined bodies.

 


	3. i'm a pain, i'm a child, i'm afraid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> enter: kate bishop. also, tw for blood!

Tommy doesn’t understand how it all went so wrong so quickly. 

It was a routine bust. Kate, Billy and Cassie were on a mission on the other side of the country, so Captain America had assigned them to deal with a small village that was being overrun by some Doombots that went rogue. A couple of petty thieves masquerading as tourists had inadvertently reactivated them while looting what turned out to be one of Doom’s old hideouts. 

Him, Teddy and Eli get there courtesy of an Avengers-sanctioned quinjet, because  _ they can do that now, holy shit.  _ His teammates start taking out the bots as he evacuates the civilians in twos and threes. 

He runs around the village square once, twice, five times, leaving a trail of smoking robot parts and dust in his wake every time. On his sixth round, he hears cries of help from underneath a collapsed structure of what he figures used to be a grocery store. 

“Speed! A little help?” Teddy calls out from the air, where he’s being swarmed by blasts from the ground.

“Copy that, Hulkling! A ‘lil speedster special coming right up. Fly higher!”

Tommy relays the location of the trapped civilians to his teammates through the comm. link before running in a circle right below Hulkling’s position. The doombots around Teddy get caught in the wind funnel he creates, trying to but unable to move. 

Tommy exhales harshly and speeds up, grinning when the bots start spontaneously combusting one by one. From the corner of his eyes, he can see Teddy touching down a safe distance away, putting his strength to good use by lifting the rubble that enclosed the villagers. 

It’s pure luck that allows one of the doombots to let out one last shot before it explodes into nothing like the rest of its comrades. Caught in perpetual motion, there’s nothing Tommy can do as the blast of whatever it was hits Teddy right between the shoulder blades. The flesh gets hit during the vulnerable instance of mid-shift, and bleeds immediately. Profusely. 

Tommy gets to watch in excruciatingly slow motion as his teammate falls to his knees, the rescued villagers watching on in shock as he lets out one of the most horrible, agonizing screams Tommy’s heard since juvie. 

No, no, no, no, _no!_ Not Teddy, no. _There’s so much blood, even from afar. Too much, too much._ _No, no more._ Don’t touch me. No, _no,_ I can’t run anymore. Please, I’m going as fast as I can. Stop, don’t - _no_ _!_

“Patriot!” he growls, finally able to run to his fallen teammate, “get these civilians out of here!”

Teddy’s eyes are scrunched in pain, the wound gushing blood from the juncture of two torn wings.  _ He can’t shift it away,  _ Tommy realizes belatedly, his hands doing nothing to stop the bleeding. He gathers as many medical supplies as he can from the ruins of the store and slowly, painfully slings Teddy’s arm over his shoulders.

“This is going to hurt, Teddy. I’m sorry,” he whispers, before running the older boy back to the jet.

“Bee,” Teddy gasps, as Tommy lowers him to a sitting position. He turns to him in confusion, only to have a weak finger run over his cheek before Teddy passes out from the pain. 

*

He’s barely taken two steps into the mansion’s med bay before Billy’s shouting in his face. 

“What is wrong with you!”

“What’s wrong with me?” he replies incredulously. Tommy doesn’t understand what Billy’s talking about, but at this point the retort slips out almost instinctively, “What’s wrong with you! I just saved your alien boyfriend’s life. Which, you’re welcome, by the way.”

Billy grabs him by the sleeve and roughly drags him away from Teddy’s bed, where the shapeshifter is turned awkwardly on his side, being attended to by Dr. Pym and the Night Nurse.

“Because bringing him back bleeding and stuck halfway through a transformation is saving someone now, yeah?” sneers Billy, “What a hero, Tommy. Truly.”

Tommy narrows his eyes. He won’t let Billy see how the words punch the breath right out of his lungs. No, not even Billy.  

_ You gave this to me, you don’t get to take it away. It’s the one part of me that I get to keep, if I can’t have you.  _

“You don’t get to tell me how to save someone, witch boy,” he drawls, flicking his hair. To his horror, he sees red at the tips of the silver strands, stains of Teddy’s blood in his  _ hair. _

“It wasn’t Speed’s fault, Wiccan,” Eli tries to cut in, an uncharacteristic mediator. He’s changed into civilian clothing, bandages all over his arms and chest. 

“If you want to be a superhero, you work to save  _ everyone. _ You’ve got to be all in,” Billy insists, ignoring him. 

“You mean like how you saved Iron Lad?” Tommy shoots back, some sort of sick satisfaction blooming in him at the stricken look on Billy’s face.

“Yeah, I know all about that little adventure. Screw you, Billy! We saved a village full of people today. And I’m sorry that your boy got hurt but he’ll get better. Why the fuck are you so angry?”

“Look, you’re both obviously stressed right now,” Eli tries again, physically placing himself between the identical boys, “why don’t we all calm down and get your wounds treated.”

Tommy immediately shakes his head at super speed, but the red stubbornly remains. He doesn’t know what he expected. He looks down at his costume and notices, for the first time, the splashes of dried blood among the green and white. That’s not good. 

Maybe Billy’s right, maybe he’s not-

“How dare you?”

Good enough. They hadn’t really talked since that night in his bedroom, and Tommy feels like a fool for expecting things to have changed between them. Billy will always put Teddy first. That was a given.

“We did what we had to. Teddy was shot right in front of you-”

In a way, he’s glad he heard it from Billy and not anyone else on the team. His not-twin has a bad habit of lacing his words with poison without even realizing it, but he always knows when Billy’s spouting bullshit.

“Listen to me! You’re both hurt, let’s just-”

Just because Billy said it doesn’t mean it’s true, and just because he thinks that there’s some sort of connection between them doesn’t mean there is. 

Tommy runs. 

*

The Kaplans don’t celebrate it, but they still gave him and Teddy Christmas money to spend on whatever they want. 

He remembers standing near the menorah when the Drs. Kaplan gave it to him, the way he swallowed the urge to return it, fought the instinct to flinch when Rebecca put her arms around him, and greeted them both happy holidays. 

Teddy probably used his to treat Billy somewhere nice, or to buy one of those pricey trade comics the two of them were always babbling about. Whatever.

He uses the money to take Kate out for drinks instead. In Ireland. 

“You know I’m still with Eli, right?” is what she first greets him with, stepping out of a private jet, purple glasses on her face. 

“Where’s your holiday spirit, Bishop?” he teases, his hair all windswept from the run across the Atlantic. He’d feel guilty for all the dust his passport is gathering from the international trips, except he doesn’t really care. 

“It’s the end of January,” Kate deadpans, before smiling widely and pulling him into a hug. 

Tommy returns her embrace, inhales the scent of her expensive perfume for a second before picking her up and running them to the pub he’s picked out for the night. 

She makes a valiant effort not to puke and pulls out a couple of fake IDs from her luxury purse. Nice.

They get inside with no problem and Tommy spends an hour downing shots and scaring off Irish boys trying to flirt with Kate. 

Neither works. He doesn’t get drunk and the boys don’t leave Kate alone. So he takes her hand and they go dancing. 

“How are things at the Kaplans?” she asks, her voice close and intimate, her gaze shrewd.

Tommy thinks of family dinners, of helping the twins with their homework, and trying not to notice Teddy sneaking off every night to be with his boyfriend. Billy has taken to ignoring his existence at the house, moving around him and avoiding his and Teddy’s shared room like the plague. It’s an awkward arrangement, to say the least.

“It’s fine,” he answers in a strangled voice. 

“How’s your attempts at emancipation?”

“It’s going,” Kate replies noncommittally, twirling under his arm.

“Your ten o’clock,” she whispers again, bringing both arms over his shoulders, “guy in gray tee looks like he wants to eat you alive in a totally sexy way.”

Tommy lets a few seconds pass before stealing a look under the guise of dipping Kate. The people around them let out cheers and whoops and he starts to lose himself in the music and the girl in his arms.  _ I totally missed out on this whole friendship thing. Must be due to spending my early adolescence in a prison for freaks.  _

The guy looks cute, lean muscles and a jawline he’d love to pepper with kisses, but-

“Maybe later, I still owe you a dance.”

Kate’s smile looks like the first sliver of moonlight as it touches the ocean. 

 

Later, as they try to check in a hotel using their very limited Irish, the receptionist’s very limited English, and Kate’s very numerous debit cards, Tommy finally feels the effect of the alcohol he downed in super speed. 

Kate half-drags his sorry ass to the elevator, laughing loudly the entire time.

“I thought speedsters didn’t get drunk,” she teases, brushing his hair out of his eyes as he tries to make the world stop spinning. 

“Thought so too,” he grumbles, squinting to decide which of the three Kates he’s seeing is the real one. 

The elevator starts going up and he tries his hardest to hold onto the bile threatening to burst out of his mouth. 

“Anyway,” Kate begins, totally sober and still sporting amazing hair that miraculously doesn’t smell like booze, proving once again that her superpower is being better than all of them, “I’m sorry you didn’t get to hook up with that one guy. He seemed really desperate and I feel like you haven’t had much time to relax since we broke you out.” 

“Are you saying only really desperate guys would hook up with me?” Tommy slurs out, glaring balefully at his supposed friend with one eye half-open. 

“I mean, I’m not saying that, but I’m also not not saying it, you know?”

“What? I’m too drunk for this.” 

“I know, T. Let’s get you to a bed.”

“Ha, you called me T,” Tommy laughs, leaning heavily on Kate as they enter the room, “Billy calls Teddy T. Are we going to make out now?”

Kate dumps him into the bed and looks amusedly down on him. Not good.

“No, Tommy. We are not.”

“Oh, okay.” He blinks slowly and holds his arms out instead. “Cuddle?”

Kate takes the time to think about it for a minute.

“Shower first, then cuddle.”

Tommy pouts a little. (A lot.)

After (separate) showers, they both lie down on their backs, side by side, on the giant queen sized bed Kate made sure would be available for them.

Tommy finds himself talking earnestly to the ceiling.

“I feel like he thinks he should be responsible for me. But he doesn’t have to? I’m a big boy and I’m a strong independent superhero?”

“Word, dude.”

“I know I’m reckless, I know that. But I would never deliberately put anyone in danger.”

“I know, Tommy,” Kate replies quietly.

And it’s easy, so easy to be vulnerable with Kate. His thoughts spill out unchecked, in a way it never did with the few friends he had in his old life. 

“I was scared,” he mumbles, “Teddy looked- There was blood everywhere and his voice was so wrecked.”

“It’s hard to remember that he isn’t actually invincible.”

“Yeah, that.” A pause. “I just wanted to make sure he was okay.”

“He is. You know that. And because of you.”

Tommy feels for Kate’s hand in the dark and covers his face with it. 

“I just want Billy to like me when I’m not dying or crying. That’s all I want. I would also want to make out with his face but the first thing’s more important, overall.“

“So why don’t you just talk to him?”

_ He’s not you,  _ he wants to say,  _ he won’t understand the way you do.  _ Or he’ll understand too well, and right now Tommy’s honestly not sure which would be worse.

“I don’t know. I’ll fuck it up. It’s too important, he’s too important.”

“He’s just a giant dork. I love him, but he ain’t all that. Also, he has a boyfriend. Also, his face is your face because you have the same face.”

“I know. I’m fucked up, Katie. Is that why he doesn’t like me?” 

“Billy likes you, Tommy.”

“I’m honestly not sure about that.”

“Well, I am,” Kate says fiercely, moving her hand from his face to run through white blond hair.

“Everything would be easier if I didn’t like him that way.”

“Maybe you just need to get laid.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

“Part of it, yeah. I just want him to be a part of my life. And I want him to want to be there.”

Tommy makes a sound of protest when Kate stills. 

“I’m really drunk right now, but even if I weren’t I think I’d still find that really sad.”

Tommy nuzzles insistently into her hand and Kate resumes stroking his hair.

“I have a very sad life.”

“You’ll warm up to each other, don’t worry. You’ve got all the time in the world.”

The next day, the Superhuman Registration Act passes into law. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> so this is the rewritten version of i've always had a thing for silence (but lately I just need a voice I'll recognize). wrote this instead of socializing with the family during christmas break because apparently that's who I am now. it's a bit rusty since this is actually my first time writing YA?? lol let me know how I did. probs 3-5 more chapters?? we'll see haha let me know what you think by leaving a comment happy holidays!


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